Jane Was Here

by Sarah Kernochan

  “Awesome! Great idea, son.”

  They’ll have fun. And maybe the love he’s supposed to feel for Collin will emerge.

  And then he could forget about Jane.

  Later he kisses Collin goodnight, and finds his kiss miraculously returned. He arranges the mosquito netting around the boy’s bed and turns out the light, climbing upstairs to work at his computer.

  Instead of working, however, he goes online and enters “jane amelia pettigrew” in a search window. The results return instantly: “0.” He tries other search engines, with no luck.

  His cell phone rings.

  It’s Elsa Graynier. “I hope you don’t mind my phoning so late. I was paging through Doctor Pincus’ journals and I found several notes on the Pettigrews.”

  “Great. Anything new?” Brett asks, his hopes roused.

  “In 1833 there was a scarlet fever epidemic. That’s how the mother died. And here’s the death of the father: ‘March 21, 1854. Attended bedside B. Pettigrew. Death past midnight. Phthisis.’ I had to look the word up. It’s what they used to call tuberculosis.”

  “And…anything on Jane?”

  “There’s only one entry about her. The doctor treated her for a serious bout of the grippe in 1853, which she survived. She would have been about 20.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m afraid so. But then there’s Rebecca. Listen to this: ‘September 20, 1854. Examined body of Rebecca Pettigrew. Death by drowning in Pease Pond. Decay indicates more than a month in water. By her own hand.’ It would explain why she was buried in the paupers’ field. Although I thought the Unitarians were more charitable toward suicide than the Catholics. I do hope your Jane had a happier life.”

  Brett thanks Elsa and and hangs up.

  He wants to cry; his heart feels leaden. Turning off his computer, he goes downstairs to his bedroom and lies down in the dark. Jane, where are you?

  Then he remembers the vision he had, here in this same bed, that night she first knocked at his door.

  A doctor, bent over his wasted dead body, closing his lids. The blood flecks on the sheet about his chin. Phthisis. Tuberculosis, coughing up blood, wasting away…

  He wishes suddenly that he could conjure that scene again, like a dusty volume that he could reach down from the shelf and open, to learn…

  He feels a shifting in the darkness as his body grows heavy. He finds he can’t lift a muscle. A febrile heat spreads through his limbs, and a dim light blooms on the ceiling.

  My Jane, my own dear Jane, where are you?

  The voice is no longer his own. Another man’s tortured cry issues from his throat: Jane! My daughter!

  He tastes blood in his mouth; feels a suffocating pressure in his chest, his body immobilized on fever-soaked sheets. He manages to rotate his head a few degrees, and sees a kerosene lantern beside his bed. It throws a weak halo of light on the ceiling.

  Suddenly the light is blocked: a face bends over him. A young woman in tears. She touches her hand to his, weeping, “Papa…I’m sorry, Papa…”

  He musters enough strength to push her hand away.

  She retreats from his view. “Oh! He won’t forgive me,” she sobs to someone else in the room.

  He doesn’t want her. She isn’t Jane.

  He hears her retreat, the door closing. A man’s head comes into view, looking down upon him. Rimless spectacles, a high stiff collar: the doctor.

  He’s dying.

  Again.

  IT TAKES ALL Brett’s effort to force the images away, and pull his consciousness away from the dying man’s. The scene dissipates.

  He is Brett Sampson, splayed on the musty bedcovers in the dark, in Father Petrelli’s bedroom.

  It was his bedroom, too—Benjamin Pettigrew’s. He died here, calling for his daughter Jane.

  Where does that knowledge come from? The strange certainty, the unsought images.

  If they come not from my memory, then where?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Toward dawn, Jane returns from the Realm, flying swiftly over land and sea, unfettered by flesh and bone; her being is weightless and lambent. She pauses to hover over 53 Sycamore Street, pining for home and the man she deserted. But her body is waking; and so she travels on to the hospital bed.

  She slips back into her form, then awaits the conscious day.

  She wakes with no memory of the dream. When she opens her eyes, she is gazing up at a harsh, flickering rectangle of bluish light on the ceiling. The air is cold. A dull buzz of pain in her shoulder comes alive with the rest of her. She cannot move her arm. Her left shoulder is covered by a thick bandage; there are tubes extending from her hand, attached to the needles taped to the back.

  What has happened to her?

  She is naked under a patterned cotton shift; her clothes are gone. Her first thought is of her gold brooch, missing along with the shirt it was fastened on.

  She feels something encircling her right wrist. She lifts it to her eyes.

  A plastic bracelet. It tells her she is Jane Eddy, date of birth unknown, in the care of Dr. Kashishian, ICU ward.

  A nurse peeks in. “Good, you’re awake.” Entering, she takes Jane’s temperature and checks the empty IV bag. “How are you feeling this morning, Jane? Any pain?”

  “My shoulder,” Jane whispers hoarsely. “And—” she touches her hand to her throat, then her abdomen.

  “That’s from the stomach pump. Do you feel like you can get a little broth down? Some Jell-o?”

  “I shall try.”

  The nurse presses a button beside the bed, tilting Jane up. Detaching the needles, she frees the girl’s injured arm.

  “If you please, where are my clothes?”

  “We had to throw out your shirt. Your uncle has the rest of your things. He’s waiting outside to take you home, after the doctor checks you.”

  Uncle? Home? Jane watches the nurse leave. Fear mounting, she wonders: could “home” mean Virginia? Is her “uncle” that detective, masquerading as a relation to take her back to her false parents?

  The door opens again. A strange man carrying a shopping bag steps inside and approaches her bed.

  “Hello,” he says softly. “Do you remember me?”

  “No, sir,” she murmurs, bewildered.

  Lean, tanned, freshly shaved, he smells of soap. Sun-streaks rake his brown hair; bloodshot whites rim his brilliant blue eyes.

  “You were in my kitchen last night.”

  “Was I?” She has a vague memory of eating a pretty cake in the moonlight. Then the punishing stomach cramps…

  “I didn’t mean to shoot you.”

  “Am I shot?” She looks at her bandaged shoulder, understanding now.

  “I thought you were an intruder.” He shakes his head ruefully. “Jesus. I could’ve killed you.”

  He could have killed me. She shivers as if enveloped in a shroud of cold: she feels danger behind his transparently blue eyes.

  He has killed before.

  “I’m sorry,” he is saying, “I’m so sorry.”

  Voices in the corridor approach. The stranger puts his mouth to her ear, hastily whispers: “Please don’t get me in trouble. Tell them I’m your Uncle Hoyt.”

  “Uncle Hoyt,” she repeats, shifting her head away. His nearness, his breath on her cheek, alerts her to a different danger: a sudden erotic heat climbs up her body, unfamiliar and frightening.

  “And your name is Jane, okay? Like Jane Doe.” He straightens up as the door swings open.

  A hirsute man in a white jacket enters briskly, clipboard in hand. “Good morning, Jane. I’m Dr. Kashishian. I’m going to examine your wound.”

  The man who calls himself Hoyt steps aside so the doctor can sit on Jane’s bed. She winces as he gently peels the bandage off her shoulder, revealing a livid gash.

  “Not bad,” he remarks. “You shouldn’t have a problem with infection, if you follow preventive protocol at home.” Rising, he turns to Hoyt. “She’s good to go. The
nurse will show you how to dress the wound for the next three days. After it’s had a chance to drain, bring Jane back and we’ll put in stitches.”

  “Will do.”

  “She’s lucky, you know. I hope you’ll be more careful with firearms after this.”

  Hoyt starts to speak when Jane interrupts: “It’s not his fault.”

  The men look over at her.

  “Uncle Hoyt believed I was an intruder,” she says, her voice surprisingly vehement.

  The uncle rewards her with a grateful glance.

  A volunteer brings in a tray of Jell-o; behind her, the nurse carries pills in a paper cup.

  The room feels crowded; the man named Hoyt backs toward the door. “I’ll go check you out while you eat and get dressed.” He puts the shopping bag on the chair. “Your stuff’s inside. I bought you a new shirt and some jeans. Hope I got the size right.”

  “Thank you.” She is careful not to look in his eyes; they have too troubling an effect on her.

  As soon as he is gone, Jane asks the volunteer to bring her the shopping bag. She rifles through the contents with her good hand. Underneath the new clothes are her bloodstained purple anorak and dirty sneakers zipped in a large plastic bag. A smaller bag contains the gold brooch.

  Her fingers close around the pin. It fortifies her; her pain fades away. She knows what she must do. An unfinished task awaits her return: the half-dug hole in the glade, at the top of Rowell Hill.

  HOYT PAYS THE HOSPITAL bill in cash—nearly all he has—without a second thought. He hurt the girl; he must make it right.

  On his way out of the office, he sees Pearl Walczak counting cash onto another bookkeeper’s desk, paying a bill of her own. Her cheeks are tear-stained; she looks thinner than he remembers. He hesitates, wondering if Marly is here, sick, in the hospital.

  He could ask her, but Hoyt has always avoided contact with Pearl, annoyed by Marly’s pigheaded insistence that he fathered the girl. He might have taken her seriously if he and Pearl bore the slightest resemblance. He would have bolted, for one thing, and left Graynier. But Pearl looks nothing like him, and Marly’s full of shit.

  He takes the elevator back up to the ICU where Jane is dressed, alert, and ready to leave. She keeps pace beside him as they walk down the corridor, moving briskly despite her injury, her pale brow furrowed with some private problem.

  They ride the elevator to the lobby in awkward silence. The jeans he bought that morning when the mall opened hang off her slender hips; the T-shirt is loose as a sack, humped up on her left shoulder over the bandages. A gold pin of twined flowers is fastened to the chest pocket.

  He cups her right elbow to guide her toward the exit. “What’s your name?” he asks gently.

  She evades his touch. “I am Jane.”

  “No, your real name. Now that we’re done pretending.”

  “Truly, my real name is Jane.” She sounds impatient.

  “No kidding.” He laughs. “Pretty lucky guess.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  A little lady. The stilted speech and grave manner are odd on someone so young. He mimics her formal tone: “Jane, may I inquire why you were in my kitchen last night?”

  “I was hungry, and I found your door open.”

  “Are you homeless?”

  “No.”

  Outside, they pause on the sidewalk under the glaring morning sun.

  “Can I give you a ride home?”

  “If you please, Mr. Eddy.”

  He walks her to where his truck is parked. Clearing the clutter from the passenger seat, he helps her up into the cab and starts the engine. “So where are we going, Miss Jane?”

  She stares forward, her hands folded neatly in her lap. “To your house.”

  “You want to stay with me for a few days?” He likes the idea, wanting to care for her, to make up for his wrong.

  “No, sir. I would like to return home, and your house is nearby.”

  He steers the pickup out of the lot, searching his memory for names of neighbors whose child she might be. “Why don’t I just take you straight to your place?” He fishes for information: “I guess I owe your parents an explanation.”

  “My parents are long dead.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Actually, he’s overjoyed. He’d rather eat glass than explain to some parents how their little girl got the hole in her arm and the ache in her belly. “Where do you live, then?”

  “On top of Rowell Hill.”

  He’s taken aback. “It’s all woods.”

  “Nevertheless, for the present it is my home.”

  “Raised by wolves, eh?” He makes the turn onto Route 404 heading for Graynier.

  “I have not seen any wolves.” She seems displeased by his joke; her voice hardens. “I live alone in a small shelter, where I do not want anyone to find me. I am forced to confide in you, Mr. Eddy, because I will need your help to get there. It is a long walk uphill, and I am not in superior health, owing to your carelessness.”

  He is incredulous. “Let me get this straight. You want me to carry you all the way up Rowell Hill?”

  “Only on occasion, when I am tired,” she says matter-of-factly. “And there is something else you may do for me. There is a heavy stone I must move, which I cannot manage on my own. After that you may go. But you must promise to tell no one where I am. I trust you will keep my secret as I have kept yours, Uncle Hoyt.”

  “You win,” he says to mollify her. “But as long as we’re sharing confidences, you might tell me what you’re hiding from.”

  “I may not!” she retorts. “You are importunate.”

  Hoyt breaks out laughing. “In my entire life I’ve never used that word.”

  “Perhaps your entire life has been useless.”

  He grins at her. She keeps her gaze forward, but he sees a smile tweak the corner of her mouth; her cheek flushes, pink spreading across the pallor. She suddenly looks pretty. He’s embarrassed to find himself aroused…

  …then has to slam down the brake to avoid hitting a car stopped in front of them.

  Stalled traffic snakes around the bend, the cars blinking left signals. Ahead, a policeman holds up the opposite lane, beckoning Hoyt’s line forward.

  “It’s the St. Paul’s fair.” Hoyt points out the Ferris wheel looming over the trees. “Ever had a corn dog?”

  “Is that an animal?”

  “No, it’s food.”

  “Then I think not.”

  She “thinks not.” Flaky kid.

  THOM SAYRE ACHES to get to the St. Paul’s Fair. This is his favorite day of the year, when the Graynier Volunteer Fire Brigade hosts its traditional Dog ‘N’ Patty Grill stand; he was up all night hand-molding hundreds of his famous burgers.

  After rushing through his rounds, he heads toward the post office to ditch his truck, only to get stuck in the traffic turning onto the fairground. As the cop ahead releases the opposite lane, a stream of cars slowly moves past his window.

  That’s when he sees the girl sitting alongside Hoyt Eddy in his pickup.

  Taking Fancher’s card from his wallet, Thom punches the Virginia number into his cell phone.

  “HERE WE ARE.” Hoyt holds the door open for Jane. “The scene of the crime, as it were.”

  She steps inside.

  Hoyt is uncomfortably aware of what she must see. This morning he swept up the remaining glass shards from the broken panes, washed her blood off the kitchen linoleum, kicked the piles of books behind the sofa, and vacuumed until the bag split open. When he opened the back of the machine, it regurgitated its contents back onto the carpet. He had no replacement bag, so he swept the mess under the sofa.

  Now Jane is surveying the putrid rug and pull-out couch, which have absorbed every spill and excretion of his tireless debauchery. He used to bring women home from O’Malley’s Mare just to watch their nostrils quiver at the smell; then they’d get that pained rumple on their foreheads as they debated whether they could actually go through having sex
in this sewer.

  Jane’s gaze travels to the shattered panes. “Those are the windows you broke,” he says dryly.

  “I?” Her gray eyes are wide with protest.

  “Wasn’t it you?”

  “On my honor, no.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Water under the bridge. Anyway, I thought you could sleep in here on the sofa. Or,” he offers reluctantly, thinking of his stain-speckled sheets, greasy pillows and dented mattress, “if you want more privacy, I could give you my bed.”

  “I shall not be sleeping here.” Her voice is cool. “We should embark right away on our climb. The trail begins behind your house. At the end of it, you continue straight up until a stonewall appears. It marks a path to the shelter—”

  “You’re not going.”

  Her eyes flash indignantly. “You gave your word!”

  “Jane.” He folds his arms. “You’re still at risk of infection. I would be derelict in my duty if I left you up there all alone. You can’t clean out your wound by yourself, and then you need someone to drive you back to the hospital to get stitched up. When I know you’re better I will take you uphill and move your stone, whatever you want. Right now you’re going to lie down and rest.”

  Jane sits on the couch. Her expression is veiled. “If that is your wish, then please leave me alone to sleep. I am indeed quite tired.”

  They are interrupted by Pete exploding through the doggie door, smelling of carrion. Jane cowers; Hoyt grabs the animal’s collar, drags him into the kitchen and thrusts him out the door with a bowl of dog chow to keep him occupied.

  Returning to the living room, Hoyt is happy to see Jane lying curled on the couch, shoes off, her head on a cushion. “Atta girl, take a good nap. Pete won’t bother you.” He locks the dog flap on the front door. “I’m going out to fill your prescription at the pharmacy and get us some lunch. There’s orange juice in the fridge if you get thirsty.” Hand on the doorknob, he adds, “I think you know your way around the kitchen.”

  “I do.” She doesn’t return his grin.

  Driving to the mall, Hoyt congratulates himself on getting the upper hand. Not as fragile as she looks, my Jane, he thinks, then scolds himself for using the possessive for a girl he knows nothing about. But there it is: right or wrong, he feels as if she belongs to him now. His mistake, his responsibility, his guest—his.